Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus.
Related Art
Conventionally, a technique is known that acquires two images using a stereoscopic camera and provides a distance measurement via matching the two images. Typically, the matching is performed using brightness values of the images. Portions of the two images where the same target is captured may be different in brightness value. This can be caused by lens conditions of the stereoscopic camera, imager errors, aging degradation and the like. A counter measure thereagainst may include (1) a technique for comparing the two images and correcting one of the two images based on a brightness difference (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2009-069114), and (2) a technique for matching the two images after local corrections of the images (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2011-243194).
However, for the techniques disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2009-069114 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2011-243194, it has been difficult to sufficiently improve the matching accuracy.
In consideration of the foregoing, exemplary embodiments of the present invention are directed to providing an image processing apparatus capable of improving the matching accuracy.